Justin Cary

Any photos out there? Would you be willing to sell them as a smaller set? 16/24/32/50/85? Thanks! Justin

What era glass is this? I'm reading 70's to now... Correct?

Did they sell?

Is this set still available?

I know that 800T was available at one point... Do you think Kodak is actively working on a stock to compete with the 800ASA digital sensors on the market? I shoot with a Scarlet/Epic quite a bit and it's not the 800ASA they claim. I rate the sensor at 500 and that seems about right. Of course they aren't going to market the sensor at 500... that takes that major advantage over film off the table. I'm just curious if Kodak could develop an 800 speed stock that was similar to the grain structure of 500 if that would be a game changer or not??? Any thoughts? I'm probably barking just to bark... But hey, I can dream! Justin

I had seen the Kodak interview with Prieto so I knew when to look for the Alexa footage. I watched the film on Blu-ray on a 65" LED LCD and thought the grain looked AMAZING!!! When the Alexa footage was cut in it was almost too jarring (the cleanliness). I wonder if they tried to throw some post grain or even overlay actual scanned film grain if it would have made a difference. Not for better or worse but just for continuities sake. I noticed more drifting with the focus on the Alexa stuff that would have been masked a bit by that chunky 500ASA :) I'm not a 1st AC and think they have one of the toughest jobs in the industry! It's just so much more noticeable with that stark clean image. Prieto said they couldn't get the exposure they needed on 500T so they went with the Alexa. What a great use of digital capture... There's a tool for every job!

I have no idea how this would work... I'm not an electrical engineer or programmer... But my programmer and I are working on a Super 8 datacine using this line of camera for acquisition. http://www.baslerweb.com/products/ace.html?model=337 Anyway, there is a video feed of sorts coming out of the I/O. If that could be converted to BNC or HDMI with a powered converter it could work. The cameras are very small and light. But again, I have no idea how or if it would work. If you come up with a solution I'd love to hear it. I have an SRII with a B&W Jurgens tap. I'd love to get a nice crisp clean HD feed off the fiber screen! -JC

Thanks to both of you. I haven't decided how grainy I really want the image. I started out thinking I was going to shoot the piece on 7213 Super 8 but, as most of us know, it's much cheaper to work with S16 or even 35 on the back end of things. I just couldn't get a legit DI for a price I was happy with. I'm able to get my S16/35 LOG DPX scans off the ARRIscan for $.02/frame. I'm thinking about going a little more clean on this piece and shooting the 7213 although I'm dying to shoot some 7219. I'll be sure to post the piece when it's all complete. Here's the last thing I had scanned at Nolo Digital Film in Chicago. They do an excellent job for an amazing price.

I've seen this a lot. I typically always open up a full stop for DI. When DoP's refer to rating the neg at 320 is that doing the same thing as opening up a stop... or, do I rate it for 320 and continue to treat the film as I normally would if it were 320ASA? By that I mean, do I open up an additional stop after rating it at 320? Thanks for your help. I'm shooting a project in February on S16. Trying to decide whether to go with Vision3 200T or 500T. Obviously the 500T will be quite a bit grainier, which will ultimately be an aesthetic decision. - Justin Cary

Thanks for the replies. I think I've decided to warm it up a bit and shoot a litter flatter (in color temp). I'll be sitting in on the grading session so we'll get out look there. Thanks again! Justin

I use a Minolta Flash Meter VI... It has both incident and spot. I guess we need to start looking at Digital Sensors like we look at Film Stocks. I expose different film stocks differently based on personal experience with the stock. I know most negative film stocks will hold if I open up a stop or two and I choose to open up a little more when shooting faster stocks to help reduce grain in shadows and help with DI. If a RED One MX sensor is set to 320 but needs to be metered at a 250 then that's where I'd start. I've personally done some tests and have noticed the RED One MX eats light like crazy... I open up at least a stop to compensate. The great thing about shooting R3D is the minimal amount of noise you get when adjusting ISO in post, so that can save your a$$ from time to time. With that aside. Light by eye... start your metering to get the contrast and fine tune from there. A DoP paints with light, and knowing exactly light is hitting the film stock or sensor is our job. Buy a light meter and learn how to use it! You'll never leave the house without it. Justin

I'm shooting a piece in mid February that will be shot in a blacksmith shop on Kodak Vision3 200T 16mm. There will be a bit of fire in the forge and the glowing red steel which will be a factor as well. We are shooting the piece after the sun goes down so we'll be in 100% control of the environment. My real concern lies in the china balls I'm hanging above the beams out of sight. The practicals are (8) 150W 2700K clear bulbs that I'll be placing in lanterns to soften up and give me an overall flat light. I'm going to come back in and light my subject for a nice contrasty look... So here's the question... There are 4 windows that I will be shooting 2K fresnels through. I'm going to soften the light quite a bit before it enters the room but should I compensate with some 1/4 CTO to bring the color temp down a bit to match the practicals and get a little closer to the temp of the fire? The footage will be scanned to 2K on an ARRIscan and later graded at the same facility. Better to purchase actual 3200K photofloods and shoot everything at 3200K or should I warm everything up so the grade is less cumbersome? Thanks for your help... Sorry for the lengthy post. Below is a shot of the room.

I would also recommend ScanYourFilm for HD or 2K transfers. They do an amazing job. I should mention that Rob @ Cinelab is very very good as well. Justin

Kevin, I think everybody I know that wants to build a solid system has considered the Machine Vision cameras :) We've been looking at the Guppy Pro but the sensor is very very small. Not the pixel size but the physical size. What we're doing right now is projecting the image directly onto a 5D full frame sensor and are loving the results. Obviously we can't continue doing this because we are wasting the shutter. We'd like to purchase the higher end camera with the Kodak full frame sensor but they're $10K. We really want to build an "in home" transfer device that can be bought for the price of a professional DSLR, somewhere around $6K. Yes, you would have to use some sort of HDR capture to preserve the latitude and density of the film. We've considered that as well. We're basically doing what HDDSLR shooters are doing to gain latitude in their images. We peg the saturation and contrast as low as the camera will allow. As far as negative, I've had fairly good luck using the same bright white LED and drastically playing with the white balance until the orange is white(ish). Not a fix, but for transferring home movies it looks pretty good... but always really dirty as the dust is white not black. Good luck, let us know how you do!!! Here's our latest transfer: Justin

This is obviously not a debate on which is better... Digital or Film. I don't really care to be honest :) I love the workflow and organic nature of film. The beauty with production today is that we have a choice. If a company hires me to shoot a series of web promos that are, by nature, more "run-and-gun" I'll grab our DSLR setup and go to work. If someone asks me to produce a branding style commercial for them that needs a certain emotion to grab the viewers attention I usually opt for film. That being said, I own an Arri SRII with a set of primes. With the pricing I mentioned above I can purchase film, process it and transfer to 2K for less than I can rent a RED or Alexa setup... especially if the production will last more than a day, and let's be honest, most do! I'm happy because my investment in film will last much longer than I had originally thought. So with the price of film cameras going down and the price of scanning headed south we may actually see more, shorter, projects shot on film. That's exciting to me! If I had a scanner I would provide the same style of service for others that want to shoot film for the look, feel and quality that comes with it. That would be a killer gig!!! Justin

Will, Can you point me in the direction of a Spirit 2K Datacine for $75K? I'm not being sarcastic, I haven't really looking, just assumed they were in the $500K range. If there's one out there for $75K I'll buy it right now!!! Justin

Yes indeed... Ryan seems to be very aware of the work that flies out the door. He's basically doing the equivalent of a "Best Light" scene to scene for free. I've never ran a fancy scanner like this so I'm not entirely aware of how much actual chair time that takes. I'm currently producing two local commercial spots on S16. Honestly, I never thought I'd be able to get the post down enough to do that in this "everybody in the world has a digital camera and shoots commercials" society we're living in. I'm stoked. My next project will wrap in a couple of weeks so I'll post the results here. Send this guy some biz! Keep low prices on great scans ALIVE!!! Justin

Also wanted to point out that Nolo Digital Film in Chicago has the same $.02/frame on their ARRIscan. I didn't ask about an HD option but it's worth looking in to.

I just had some film scanned at Scan Your Film in Chicago on their 2K Spirit and the results were outstanding! For $.01/frame at HD and $.02/frame at 2K it was a no brainer. I'm really curious about other places in the country (US) taking this approach to scanning film. If only we could convince one of you guys/gals with a Super 8 gate to charge this way :) I'm sure there are two main issues. 1.) Too busy to consider at the moment 2.) There aren't very many Super 8 gates on Datacines out there. Here's the test roll SYF scanned for me. I'm relatively new to shooting film but I think this transfer looks brilliant!

I'll check them out. I think I've come across their website in the past when searching for a solution to this issue. Would it be completely out of the question to purchase an AJA Kona 3G or Blackmagic card to send out to a Plasma? $10K is extremely reasonable for the guy sitting in the sit making $100,000/yr grading features and commercials :) I know there are all sorts of forums about this issue but would it give me decent enough results that I could fake having a $10K system? - Justin

I'll check that out. Thanks, I thought I was going crazy. I'd hate to sink a bunch of money into a production and then have to push in past it or explain the phenomenon to a client. I'll give that a shot if I notice anything shiny. Justin

I recently purchased an Arri SRII Super 16 package with a Zeiss Super Speed set. I believe the lenses are MKII. I was shooting my kids around the yard just testing the camera and lenses. I love this rig!!! My only problem came when I saw the shot below. I was shooting with the 25mm at 4 and saw a hard line on the left of the frame from the lens flare. Is this normal? I had the mattebox off of the camera just running around with it having fun. I'm getting ready to shoot a series of commercials next week which I won't encounter any lens flares but have some shots written into a script we're shooting later this summer that will definitely have lens flare in. Just wondering your thoughts. Thanks. Justin Cary

John, How much does your Panasonic + CineTal Davio setup run? I'm struggling with the same thing everybody in today's market is... We have access to the biggest cheapest flat screens at any electronics store on the corner but can't rely on any of it. I'm currently shooting a short film with delivery as 2K DPX files and I'm really concerned about getting a good representation of what the client will see on their TVs. Thanks! Justin

Updated Reversal scan... Working on frame steadiness at the moment and have ordered a new camera that will capture 2K up to 15fps although we'll do some head scratching to figure out everything that needs to happen to get it to capture at 15fps :) We'd love to manufacture something that costs the price of a professional DSLR ($4K - $6K) that sits on your desk and transfers 8/S8 to 2K... even 4K... We're currently working on software to write DPX, TIF & JPG. Think this thing will have a place in the market for film lovers?

Yes the dust is pretty awful especially on the negative stock. I haven't taken a great deal of care of either of these reels as they've been the test reels for this machine. I do have 5 or 6 rolls that have been processed and prepped but never opened. I hope to throw them on the telecine this weekend and have much better results. I'll post the results next week.